Jack Heaton, wireless operator — A Closer Reading

e on his place and he had one of the best amateur outfits in town. A lot of us fellows used to make his operating room a _hang-out_ because we could get into and out of it without disturbing any one or getting called down by anybody. Bob was a mighty good sport even if he did wear spectacles and talk like a college professor and he was always willing to let a fellow listen in if he could read Morse, while for the benefit of those like myself who didn’t know the code he would tell us what the fellows in our own neighborhood were saying or what the operators down in Virginia, over in Ohio, up in New York State, or out in the Atlantic were sending.

It was interesting enough to pick bits of news right out of the air, so to speak, and I noticed that the grown-up folks were always mighty keen to hear any wireless news that might happen to come Bob’s way. In those good old days when amateur wireless was young any fellow could set up his own station, use whatever _wavelength_ he wanted to send with, and blab any news that chanced to come his way; but all this was changed a few years later when the government found that too many amateurs were abusing these privileges. To give them a chance it made every one who operated or owned a wireless station register it, gave him a call letter, limited the sending range of his apparatus, had him use waves of a certain length for sending, and made it an offense for him to give out any news which he might receive. And oh, the wail that went up all over the United States from the amateurs!

I went over to Bob’s one evening after dinner--we always have dinner in the evening in Montclair--and as usual there was Bob sitting at his table listening in. Charlie Langdon, Howard Brice and Johnny James were there and they were all leaning over him looking worried.

“Hello, fellows,” I sang out as I opened the door.

“Shut up,” hissed Howard, while Johnny punched me in the ribs with his elbow and Charlie showed his butter teeth and flapped his open hand, which in kid language means _keep still_.

I sat down sulkily, for no self-respecting boy that can box the way I used to wants to be told to shut up, get a poke in the ribs and the signal to keep his face closed when he has only said, “Hello, fellows.” After a minute or two my curiosity bristled up for I must needs know what was going on. I looked at Bob. His face was a little longer than usual, his eyes were glassy and stared hard and he kept adjusting the detector nervously.

“What’s it all about, Howard?” I whispered in his ear.

Say, you’d think I’d committed a crime the way he scowled at me. Then he deigned to make a whispered reply.

“The _Republic_ is sinking and is sending out C Q D’s.”

I could feel my heart stop beating, the blood leave my head, and my body get rigid, and it’s just about the same kind of a feeling that comes over a fellow when he is on a ship that is going down, as I have since learned.

Other ships were answering the _Republic’s_ distress signals and were headed for her but they were a long, long way off and it seemed very doubtful if they could reach her in time. The _Republic’s_ operator kept on sending C Q D’s and then her latitude and longitude. I stayed at Bob’s station until dad came after me, which was about midnight. At first he was pretty sore, but when he found out what had kept me he relented a little.

Well, the next day we wireless fellows--I had been initiated--did not take a very keen interest in our school work, for when you know a big ship crowded with human freight is sinking you don’t care much whether school keeps or not. As soon as school was out we were all at it again and then after fifty-two hours of hoping against hope, and during all of which time Jack Binns, the first wireless hero, had stuck to his key on the ill-fated ship, help reached her and by so doing his duty sixteen hundred lives were saved.